Date
Title
January 26 – March 18, 2018
Bringing Something Back
Artists
Curated by
Design by
Invitation
Press Release
Exhibition Guide
Review
Audio
Video
Link
Related
For the exhibition Bringing Something Back at Bergen Kunsthall, Joachim Koester has connected all the galleries in an immersive installation comprising 16mm film projection, digital video, photography and audio works. Set in a staged exhibition “topography,” the works are presented within architectural constructions that combine several partly transparent dividing walls, horizontal platforms, vitrines and hovering projection screens. The exhibition charts a physical journey between individual works and their distinctive narratives, each one offering a gateway into unfamiliar territories, situated by culture and history.
In the film Maybe this act, this work, this thing (2016), two Vaudeville actors are working on a new act, set within in a dimly lit theatre. Spurred by the development of the cinematic apparatus, they attempt to transform themselves into a film machine by “becoming” cogs, wheels, moving belts, and quivering electricity. Like several of Koester’s recent works, the film is anchored in the idea that traces of history and events can be found within our nervous and muscular systems as forgotten memories which can be awakened through movement and gesture. Following this train of thought, Maybe this act, this work, this thing is a kinaesthetic echo of the birth of the film medium and the cultural shifts it induced.
Throughout the exhibition visitors are invited to lie down and listen to a series of hypnagogic soundworks made in collaboration with the artist Stefan A. Pedersen. In these works a non-retinal psychogeography is invoked through the use of incantatory words and sounds that summon up physical sites entirely within the imagination. Another collaborative project takes the form of a series of ”exhibitions within the exhibition,” assembled by curator and writer Yann Chateigné Tytelman, and presented in custom-built vitrines. Like contained ecosystems or aquariums, each of these boxes contains books, objects and natural elements; drifting, speculating and expanding on ideas drawn from Köster’s works.
As an introduction to the exhibition, a new group of photographs continues Koester’s ongoing documentation of the praying mantis. An insect that is said to be able to connect with the spirit of the person who watches it, the mantis connects many of the thematic threads within the exhibition. With its "performative" mimetic faculties, its ability to blend in with the environment and its "alien" physical features and movements, the mantis echoes the motion of both the machines and the human figures that otherwise occupy the exhibition.
In collaboration with the Borealis festival for experimental music, an evening of live performances will take place in connection with the exhibition, featuring contributions by Jenny Berger Myhre, Raven Chacon, G. E. K., Sandra Mujinga / NaEE RoBErts and others.
Joachim Köster (b. 1962, Copenhagen, Denmark) lives and works in New York and Copenhagen.
Date
January 26 – March 18, 2018
Title
Bringing Something Back
Artists
Joachim Köster
Curated by
Elisabeth Jobin, Yann Chateigné
Design by
Juliette Roduit, T M David Mamie & Nicola Todeschini
Invitation
⊗
Press Release
Exhibition Guide
⊗
Review
⊗
Audio
⊗
Video
⊗
Link
Related
For the exhibition Bringing Something Back at Bergen Kunsthall, Joachim Koester has connected all the galleries in an immersive installation comprising 16mm film projection, digital video, photography and audio works. Set in a staged exhibition “topography,” the works are presented within architectural constructions that combine several partly transparent dividing walls, horizontal platforms, vitrines and hovering projection screens. The exhibition charts a physical journey between individual works and their distinctive narratives, each one offering a gateway into unfamiliar territories, situated by culture and history.
In the film Maybe this act, this work, this thing (2016), two Vaudeville actors are working on a new act, set within in a dimly lit theatre. Spurred by the development of the cinematic apparatus, they attempt to transform themselves into a film machine by “becoming” cogs, wheels, moving belts, and quivering electricity. Like several of Koester’s recent works, the film is anchored in the idea that traces of history and events can be found within our nervous and muscular systems as forgotten memories which can be awakened through movement and gesture. Following this train of thought, Maybe this act, this work, this thing is a kinaesthetic echo of the birth of the film medium and the cultural shifts it induced.
Throughout the exhibition visitors are invited to lie down and listen to a series of hypnagogic soundworks made in collaboration with the artist Stefan A. Pedersen. In these works a non-retinal psychogeography is invoked through the use of incantatory words and sounds that summon up physical sites entirely within the imagination. Another collaborative project takes the form of a series of ”exhibitions within the exhibition,” assembled by curator and writer Yann Chateigné Tytelman, and presented in custom-built vitrines. Like contained ecosystems or aquariums, each of these boxes contains books, objects and natural elements; drifting, speculating and expanding on ideas drawn from Köster’s works.
As an introduction to the exhibition, a new group of photographs continues Koester’s ongoing documentation of the praying mantis. An insect that is said to be able to connect with the spirit of the person who watches it, the mantis connects many of the thematic threads within the exhibition. With its "performative" mimetic faculties, its ability to blend in with the environment and its "alien" physical features and movements, the mantis echoes the motion of both the machines and the human figures that otherwise occupy the exhibition.
In collaboration with the Borealis festival for experimental music, an evening of live performances will take place in connection with the exhibition, featuring contributions by Jenny Berger Myhre, Raven Chacon, G. E. K., Sandra Mujinga / NaEE RoBErts and others.
Joachim Köster (b. 1962, Copenhagen, Denmark) lives and works in New York and Copenhagen.